Knicks Morning News (Wednesday, Dec 28 2011)

WHEN TYSON Chandler takes the floor in Oakland Wednesday night against the Golden State Warriors, the Knicks’ 7-1 center might look down toward the Golden State bench and briefly ponder what might have been.

Tyson Chandler has gotten to know new Warriors coach Mark Jackson over the past few years, seeing him at restaurants and living near him in California. This past offseason, Jackson tried to lure the free-agent center to Golden State â?? and nearly succeeded.
“He was like, â??Well, we’ve got a…

Impressed with what they had seen out of him in the past, the Knicks claimed former Harvard and Warriors guard Jeremy Lin off waivers yesterday. The 23-year-old, 6-foot-3 Lin was with Golden State last year as a rookie. The Warriors waived him on Dec. 9. The Rockets added him three…

OAKLAND, Calif. — Remember when David Lee was the Knicks’ starting center? Neither do I.
Two years ago, Lee and Nate Robinson were the faces of the Knicks. It only seems like two billion years ago.
Now the faces belong to Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire and their new giant…

Rookie Norris Cole shined for the Miami Heat as they beat Boston 115-107 on Tuesday to maintain their impressive start to the National Basketball Association season and hand the Celtics their second consecutive loss.

28 comments on “Knicks Morning News (Wednesday, Dec 28 2011)”

Anyone know whether Lin is available for tonight’s game? What about Bibby?

GS just signed Fesenko for 1yr / $1M. Seems like a strange pickup considering they already have Biedrins, Kwame and Udoh (not to mention Jeremy Tyler that apparently is being shipped to the D-League). They may be trading Biedrins, but still Kwame is a better option at the five.

I don’t think it’ll happen much this season, but it feels like forever since NY’s last game. savor the feeling, I guess…

and whoever said on one of the recent threads that they expect NY to start 9-1, I’d like some of what you’re smoking. they’ll be lucky to come home from this trip 3-1, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I just think that second night of back-to-backs will kill teams that are not very young or very deep. Look at what happened to CHI, losing to GS on the second night of a back-to-back, or what happened to LAL losing to SAC. On the flip side, young teams that are deep like OKC were able to pull it off against MIN. That’s why I think we lose to LAL and may lose to DET.

The Knicks are probably good enough to count the W’s against Charlotte but all the other teams, who knows what’s going to happen. We are always two quick fouls on Chandler from being a bad defensive team on the court.

I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but let’s say Baron Davis blows up this year and does so well that it becomes inconceivable we don’t re-sign him. Do we have his bird rights, or would we have to use an exception on him? It is my understanding that players on one year deals don’t have bird rights. Is that still true?

Also, does the fact that he had an extra year from Cleveland make any difference?

New Guy: Random question:I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but let’s say Baron Davis blows up this year and does so well that it becomes inconceivable we don’t re-sign him. Do we have his bird rights, or would we have to use an exception on him? It is my understanding that players on one year deals don’t have bird rights. Is that still true? Also, does the fact that he had an extra year from Cleveland make any difference?

I always thought that to get Bird rights, the player must play for the team for 3 years. Either under at least a 3 year contract or under 3 one year contracts….or some deviation of such.

PC:
The Knicks are probably good enough to count the W’s against Charlotte but all the other teams, who knows what’s going to happen. We are always two quick fouls on Chandler from being a bad defensive team on the court.

I could see us being 8-2 or 4-6 after the first ten. Who knows.

True, but if we are 4-6 without any major injury to key players (Melo, STAT, Chandler) causing that kind of a slump, then I think D’Antoni would start cleaning out his office in anticipating of the inevitable.

Jafa: I just think that second night of back-to-backs will kill teams that are not very young or very deep. Look at what happened to CHI, losing to GS on the second night of a back-to-back, or what happened to LAL losing to SAC. On the flip side, young teams that are deep like OKC were able to pull it off against MIN. That’s why I think we lose to LAL and may lose to DET.In other news, Atlanta wanted D12 before being shut down:http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/34685/what-will-magic-want-for-dwightFirst thing, if the Hawks really want D12, they need to remove the salary albatross known as Joe Johnson from the trade proposal. And I agree that Orlando needs to insist on Josh Smith and Al Horford.If Howard landed in Atlanta, is that more dangerous to us than Howard landing in NJ?

Can we save time with this and skip to the part where Howard says he will not play in Atlanta?

I’m not that concerned about the bench tonight vs G State. One of the best stretches in the Celts game was early 2Q, with Balkman/Jeffries/Shump/Jorts and Amare playing together. So, if that becomes Balkman/Walker/Jorts/Bibby or Lin/ Amare…..it’s no worse, and GS isn’t strong inside offensively. Amare can stay outside on D lee while Jorts bodies Biedrins. I’m not scared of Kwame Brown or Udoh, and Curry might not even play.

It doesn’t bother me at all to see this squad together for 12 mins, letting Amare take most of the shots, then covering some of his minutes on the 1st team with Walker or Balkman.

ok…..if you buy the “Jeffrightened” T-shirt, PLEASE don’t wear it anywhere Jarred will see it, like to a game or to subway or anything. Do we need his confidence getting worse? Can’t we come up with an “it’s OK, Jarred. We believe in you” shirt?

jon abbey:
and whoever said on one of the recent threads that they expect NY to start 9-1, I’d like some of what you’re smoking. they’ll be lucky to come home from this trip 3-1, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I said that too – and before Shump got hurt necessitating 30+ min/game from Bibby, I would’ve stood by that.

Even so, it’s not outrageous just like Jafa pointed out. Given Bynum’s absence, we are the more talented team in every single game from here until game 10.

Will be very interesting to see the Lakers game. Pau is a nice player but isn’t really a center – I think Tyson should do a nice job on him. And even though Artest is still an elite iso defender (top 20 in PPP-against in iso the last 2 years), Melo just killed the Lakers in the 5 games he played against them in 09-10 and 10-11 (averaged 26 and 28 ppg on ~50% FG). Let’s not even talk about Amare vs. McBob – that matchup should be exploited all night long.

Baron Davis is seriously our best shot at having a decent pg this year. Even if you think TD can be a starting pg, he probably ranks as one of the worst 4 starting pgs in the league. Lin and Shump are not good enough at the 1 and too young to have an effect yet. Bibby is no longer a starter in this league. Baron is likely done as well but if he can get in shape and just get close to his old form, which isn’t as old as say, Bibby’s old form…. that would be the most we could ask for.

New Guy:
I like D’antoni.It’s a shame we’re going to run him out of town this year.

I agree that FO is probably already looking at Phil, but if D’Antoni kills it this year and the Knicks make the ECF or better (not unreasonable), I think he’ll get his shot. Then next year, when presumably Nash comes to run this offensive machine… watch out.

See, I think the ECF is unreasonable this year. But something tells me the F.O. (as well as many of our unrealistic fans) disagree. This is truly the first year out of his four that he’s had the pieces in place. You’re not building a contender in one compressed season. That’s completely unrealistic.

However, there are times I see no accountability on the defensive end, so perhaps it is just.

I want nothing – and I mean NOTHING – to do with Phil Jackson. Dude is just collecting pay checks at this point. How much motivation does anyone think that guy still has?

D’Antoni’s weird to me. The guy irks me a lot with his bizarre stubbornness about who he will play. That said, the guy runs a system that needs a good point guard to run it at its best and the Knicks have given him only one sorta good point guard in his entire time here (and that was for just half a season). Isn’t that just nuts? The guy who needs a good point guard for his system to work at its best and they get everyone but a point guard for him? So yeah, there’s always that “how can we get rid of him before giving him a good point guard? thing. But that’s not that big of a deal. If he can’t adapt to his personnel this year, then sure, screw him.

What irks me more than D’Antoni’s stubbornness, though, is the fact that most of us said that the Knicks probably did not improve all that much last year with the Melo deal (that the deal was more about the future than it was about short term improvement) but when that is exactly what happened, the media couldn’t admit that they were wrong so they instead decided that it was D’Antoni’s fault. So I hate him being the scapegoat for the media’s unfounded expectations.

he did, he won two series that year, the first in seven against a Laker team where Kobe was openly hating on his teammates and ended up basically boycotting the second half of game 7, and the second in seven against a less than impressive Clippers team led by Elton Brand, who proceeded to fall off a cliff right after that.

also history since then makes one wonder whether D’Antoni or Nash should get the bulk of the credit for that team, and I think the answer would have to be Nash.

I don’t hate D’Antoni, but I also don’t think he’s anything special. he’s notoriously rigid, and he can’t be with this current roster, so this year’s going to be a huge test for him.

I hear ya Jon. I just happen to really enjoy listening to D’Antoni’s interviews and press conferences. A far cry from having to listen to Isiah and his nonsense. Plus I believe he is a pretty good coach too.